Pesticide dust blew across the road between the Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers just the other day:
Photo: WWALS member Chris Mericle, looking north from SW 69th Drive
Nearby resident and WWALS member Brit McClung says:
“A good portion the chemicals that are applied to that field wind up on my front porch, on me and in my lungs with the dirt.”
His land is just northeast and a church is southeast of Continue reading
Thanks to new Valdosta Utilities Director Darryl Muse, we think we have communication channels clarified between Valdosta and WWALS, and we have a proposal for the state of Georgia to do what Florida and Alabama are already doing to prevent communication issues in the future.
Especially since we expected paddlers from Atlanta and Gainesville, Florida, at the Saturday October 14 Withlacoochee outing and Rivers Alive Nankin Landing Cleanup in conjunction witih KLVB, I called upstream the Thursday before to check with Valdosta Utilities, and was told no spills in October.
Much to our surprise after the outing, WWALS E.D. Gretchen Quarterman noticed this online: Thomas Lynn, Valdosta Daily Times, 13 October 2017, Sewer blockage causes city pill,
A sewer line blockage caused nearly 4,000 gallons of sewage to spill earlier in the week.
The City of Valdosta Utilities Department staff responded to a sanitary sewer spill at the 400 block of Connell Road around noon Thursday, according to city officials Friday.
Hydrologic Unit Boundaries, Two Mile Branch Sub-Basin, Valdosta Master Stormwater Management Plan.
That’s in the top center edge of the Two Mile Branch watershed.
Noon was an hour before I called; keep reading for what happened.
The VDT story continues: Continue reading
Valdosta has scheduled sewer main repairs for Halloween (October 30-31) and the Days of the Dead (November 1-2); see WWALS map.
Received via email, Sementha Mathews, Valdosta PR, 26 October 2017, City Schedules Maintenance and Repairs to Sewer System,
City of Valdosta Utilities Department has scheduled two sewer main repairs, Oct. 30-Nov. 2, that will maintain the health of the city’s sewer collection system. Both of these issues were identified through the city’s smoke testing program which has tested all of the city’s 300 miles of sewer lines since 2014.
Follow this link for the interactive Google Map by WWALS.
- On Monday, Oct. 30, beginning at 9 a.m., Continue reading
Florida does it. Alabama does it. Maybe Georgia should do it: post pollution notices online as they are received, and send out email notices to those who have signed up. That way cities and counties would not have to notify anybody but the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD), and Riverkeepers wouldn’t have to poll each and every city and county to find out what is going on.
See
below for the interactive map of sewage spills in Alabama in 2016 by Alabama Riverkeepers, and see also the Florida map I drew from Florida’s Pollution Notices.
Alabama also requires reporters to include latitude and longitude in their reports, and to use an electronic reporting system. Both are great improvements on Georgia’s current methods of telephoning in a number and responding to open records requests with records that do not have GPS coordinates.
Dennis Pillion, AL.com, 1 September 2017, ADEM rolls out email notifications for sewage spills, Continue reading
Through November 24, 2017, public comment is open about lead in our Georgia watersheds, in a new proposed Total Maximum Daily Load Evaluation.
Georgia EPD, Proposed TMDLs, 29 September 2017, NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY OF REVISED TOTAL MAXIMUM DAILY LOADS FOR WATERS AND POLLUTANTS OF CONCERN IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA, Continue reading
Suwannee Riverkeeper is among the signatories on the comments Waterkeeper Alliance sent in the rulemaking on redefining Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS). Protecting feeder streams and wetlands is important also to prevent floods such as we had in 2009 and 2013, which caused massive sewage overflows.
Waterkeeper Alliance, PR, 28 September 2017, Proposed Revisions to WOTUS Reduce Clean Water Protections: EPA and the Corps’ attempts to revoke Clean Water Act protections from waters is an illegal effort that puts drinking water and public health at risk
Waterkeeper Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Turtle Island Restoration Network, and 115 Waterkeeper Organizations and Affiliates submitted comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) urging Continue reading
Received 28 September 2017 from Lowndes County Utilities Director Steve Stalvey:
John,
This is the information I sent to the State concerning the spills related to Irma on Tuesday 9-12-17. Continue reading
Nitrates, agriculture, and silviculture were already in, and sewage, phosphate mines, and the Floridan Aquifer got added yesterday afternoon in Live Oak in public comments on updates to SRWMD’s SWIM Plans, plus new SRWMD E.D. Hugh Thomas spoke.
Thanks to presenter Tom Singleton, the slides presented are on the WWALS website. Here are a few notes and pictures.
Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson of Sierra Club Florida noted Continue reading
While Alabama is thinking about it (actually, Alabama already does it) and Georgia requires an open records request with slow response (since 2018-12-21 Georgia now posts spills),
Florida has already required and is publishing timely notices of spills, and more recently a map of the most recent 30 days of spills!
Among them, surprisingly few in the Suwannee River Basin from Hurricane Irma: three in Baker and Bradford Counties from The Chemours Company, and two from Camp Blanding.
Follow this link for the interactive google map.
Daniel H. Thompson, Lexology, 4 May 2017, Florida Legislature Passes “Public Notice of Pollution Act” Continue reading
Here’s an idea for Georgia and Florida!
Dennis Pillion, AL.com, 27 September 2017, Alabama cracks down on E. coli bacteria in rivers with revised standards,
Existing five-year permits are valid until they expire, but all new or renewed permits issued by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management going forward will include the new standards.
E. coli bacteria are commonly found in Continue reading
